BULLET, CHAPTER 21 & 22
Apr. 24th, 2013 10:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
This morning my cat brought in a baby bunny. His eyes and ears are closed and he fits in my hand. He also has puncture wounds due to cat teeth. I have him in a box lined with towels at a suitable temperature and will be picking up Kitten Milk Replacer at the pet store soon, but I'm not hopeful at all regarding his survival. Of course, this happens not when I am jobless and have all hours free, but on the day just after I have started a trial run at a horse tack store that will determine if they hire me or not, and they may have me there today, probably for seven hours, in which the bunny will definitely die if I'm not there to feed him.
fucking. brilliant.
BULLET, CHAPTER 21 & 22
Anita is digging through the pile of sleeping/unconscious bodies looking for her weapons, but so far she's only found ones that aren't hers. Nathaniel, wearing a pair of cutoffs, is helping her and his hair is all wet and hanging everything and I don't know how the tug/weight of that much soaking hair doesn't just snap his ~delicate and fragile~ little neck. "The six of us in triumvirates had woken first" Anita, there are five of you in a triumvirate. It would be six, but you're in both. You, JC, Richard, Nathaniel, Damian. That's five people. Or did she somehow make a triumvirate earlier with herself, Nathaniel, and Micah despite that making no sense when the definition of a triumvirate is a vampire, their animal servant, and their human servant? I think she might have. I can't even remember in the midst of all this foolishness. "and then it seemed to go by dominance and power level."
She decides not to mention her encounter with Haven just now because he hadn't hurt her. Uh, HE TRIED TO RAPE YOU? And would have done it if not for you threatening him off with your doomcrotch powers? There are some characters for whom "well, nothing actually happened, so I don't want to make trouble" would work for as a reason not to come forward about that. Anita is not one of them. "We had to do something about Haven, but I wasn't sure exactly what." She was planning to KILL Haven earlier. But then AFTER he walks in, has nearly killed two werelions, and tries to rape Anita, suddenly she's NOT sure that he should be killed and instead has no idea what to do about him? She said earlier that she needed "an excuse" to kill Haven. She sure as fuck has one now. And yet now it's like the thought never entered her head at all. Again, for some characters I could see "talk big about wanting to kill him, but then actually chicken out when you have the opportunity to" being the case, but not Anita. She's way too vengeful, hateful, and callous for that, as well as determined to prove she's the most heartless badass executioner ever.
Honestly, I can't help but wonder if her reason is that Haven appealed to her ego with all his talk about how crazy about her he is and how Not Like Other Girls she is.
JC is making phone calls to other MotCs to find out if they're alive, and through doing this he finds out how early in the day they wake. "Just by leaving messages this early in the day, Jean-Claude was letting them know that he had woken first. It was a subtle type of one-upmanship among vampires. The earlier you woke, the more powerful you were, as a general rule." Ah, subtlety. I'm amazed that Anita even recognizes it when she sees it. Tonight, however, a lot of vampires in St. Louis are waking up early on his power rather than their own, because he took the power he got from the orgy and shoved it into them. "If I'd been in charge of the power I'd have probably raised an army of zombies in the closest cemetery." Interesting. It seems that for both vampires and animators/necromancers, any power you raise pretty much has to either be used immediately or displaced into others. They clearly can't just save it for later use, or else surely JC would have held on to it for fighting against the MOAD. I wonder, what happens if they don't use it or send it into other vampires/zombies? Will it just go away on its own after a bit? Will they explode? Anita seemed to HAVE to use it in Flirt, she felt compelled to, so maybe it's not even a choice, you have to do something with it and it will MAKE you, whether it's using it or sending it to others.
I didn't even consider these implications the first time I read over this chapter, but going back over it to spork made me slow down and think about it. I never realized this, but sporking gives me a better understanding of stuff I'd usually miss. Wow.
Anita continues to root through the tangled-up bodies of the vampires and wereanimals, and finds that it feels "unnervingly like a crime scene with a lot of dead, since the vampires didn't breathe." As used to lying in bed with 'dead' naked vampires as she is, I don't really buy this. She's found her Browning and her stupid big spine-knife, but has yet to find her wrist sheaths, backup gun, or her cell phone. She's not concerned about that though because "cell phones couldn't kill people. I wanted all the killing things back under my control. I'd check phone messages later." Firstly, she's said there are a lot of weapons that aren't hers, so even if she finds her stuff, all the "killing things" are not going to be under her control anyway. Secondly, considering that the first thing that happened after Padma and Belle was Bibi calling in with advice on how to beat the MOAD, I don't think she should be dissing cell phones as something that can wait to be found later. It would serve her right if someone tried to call her with some super-vital information and she missed it because she was too busy digging around for those precious guns that haven't gotten used in the last two books.
Noel has woken up and grabs her wrist and they both get a flashback of her giving him head. She notices he has lost his glasses, and this makes his eyes look bigger. Odd, usually glasses are what make eyes look bigger. He also looks younger without them. Squick. Not the first thing I wanted to hear after she talks about blowing him. She asks how he's feeling, he says he thought he was dead, she says he almost was, he says she saved him and asks how. Instead of telling him, she asks what he remembers, he says he remembers the sex but not much else, and he asks why he doesn't hurt. Anita tells him, "You're a shapeshifter. You guys heal quick." Anita, he might have been out of it for some stuff, but that doesn't give him amnesia so bad you need to remind him he's a therian, for crying out loud.
Noel then tells her that he doesn't heal fast. Weird, I wonder why. Also, he's nude and "it bothered me a little because I'd put Noel in the protect category; no, let's be honest, I thought of him as too innocent for me." I'm not grasping why this would make her uncomfortable to see him naked. She sees a lot of the wereanimals naked, it's repeatedly stated that this is how they are, and many are under her protection, including many that are not fucking her, such as Vivian. Oh wait, the issue is that he's innocent. So...innocents can't be seen nude? She doesn't class the other therians as innocent? "To innocent for me" Ohhh, right, it's all about her. Meaning she doesn't want to see him naked if he's not on her banging list. I get it now.
Travis awakes and says that Noel heals almost as slowly as a human. That's...odd. He doesn't say why either. I guess maybe it's supposed to be because he's such a weak lion, but that wouldn't make sense. After all, Nathaniel is a very weak leopard, and he went through loads of horrible torture when Gabriel pimped him out specifically BECAUSE he could heal from it, and quickly so. Have we ever encountered any kind of healing differential before in these books, like alphas healing faster?
Travis asks why he has three vampire bites on him, and why he doesn't feel worse than he does. Instead of answering him, Anita tells him that "Richard and I had eight apiece" and they "looked at me with wide eyes" and Anita thinks about how much younger they are not just in years but in terms of experience. Gawd, Anita. First she has to make sure she one-ups them with bites, then she has to sneer down her nose about how she can just TELL they're these totally freshfaced little greenhorns who have never seen the woes and darkness and such that she, Anita Blake, has faced!
Noel says that Anita and Richard should be dead from that much blood loss. Again, what is with the presumption that the vampires were sucking blood at all? Nathaniel asks why they didn't die, and recounts a time when he had this many vampires feed on him (he has six bites) and he was ill for over a day, but not only does he not feel ill now, he feels downright good.
Maybe because they didn't feed on you, they just bit you? And maybe you feel good because your master, Anita, presumably got some energy from all that ardeur even though JC got the bulk of the power? Anita explains what happened, that "The Lover of Death kept trying to force the power into eating each other, killing each other. Jean-Claude kept the power going to sex and healing." Nathaniel asks if that means that Morte D'Amour "meant to bleed us to death?" and Anita nods.
At first I thought "but that can't be right, the bites happened during the orgy, and that was AFTER it was turned into the ardeur by Jean-Claude" but then I read Anita's wording and it looks like instead of fleeing, Morte 'amour/MOAD repeatedly tried to turn the ardeur back to killing urges and JC kept turning it back to the ardeur, so the bites are from vampires briefly giving in to the killing urge and biting to bleed others. Okay, so I stand corrected on the idea that the vampires were just sex-biting and not food-biting, but how did Anita know that? How did they ALL know that, if they woke up feeling fine? Do feeding-bites just LOOK different from other bites, I guess? I suppose they must, since Anita still claims they were to feed/bleed even though she said they were in spots not usually used for that.
Anita realizes she's still holding Noel's hand. She debates on whether to let go or not. "I'd had metaphysical sex with him" No, you had physical sex, just under under metaphysical influence "and saved his life; how much hand-holding did I owe him?" Owe him? Owe him? Just as in Flirt, Anita doesn't seem to get that affection and gestures thereof are not like currency. You don't owe them. Ever. To anyone. You just choose to give them or not based on if you want to or not, if you feel to or not. An affectionate gesture given because you feel like it's owed is not affectionate at all.
Nathaniel has found Anita's cell phone, and Travis joins him in searching for the weapons. Noel stays by her side, strokes her arm, and asks if everything is alright. "I didn't like that he kept touching me. It wasn't that it felt bad, in fact, it felt nice, but I did not need to have adopted another lion. I had too many lions already." YOU ARE REGINA, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE LIONS. I mean, if she means 'adopted' like with Nathaniel and Nicky, then damn straight she doesn't need another, but if she means to protects and watch out for, well, the whole damn Pride is her responsibility in that department...for all that she's done jackshit for them.
Haven enters the room, naked but holding a gun. Anita thinks about how he's handsome and well-endowed but then says that this "didn't make up for the faults of his character." I think she must be trying to convince herself here, because I think the readers sure as fuck know that already. Noel is terrified and hides behind Anita. "I could feel him shaking, and even though he was nude, there was nothing sexy about it." Why would there be something sexy about it? Does Anita usually find it sexy when men are trembling in terror? Wait, no, don't answer that. She also tries to convince us that she finds Haven less hot now, but the fact she's bringing it up at all makes me less convinced than I might have been if she'd just acted. Especially when she talks about his eyes and how his hair is a richer blue when it's wet from the shower.
He says "I thought I made myself clear, but I guess not. That's okay, I can be more clear."
According to Anita, she's the only awake dominant in the room; all others are unconscious or in the showers. She reminds us that she found her Browning, but it only has lead, not silver, so she can't kill him. She has one silver wrist sheath blade and her big stupid knife but knows that he's trained really well so fighting him with blades doesn't have great odd. She also says that his arm reach and leg reach double hers...does that mean his arms and legs are twice as long as hers?
Anita tells Haven she can't let him hurt Travis and Noel. He tells her is Rex, and that even though having sex with her is "a-fucking-mazing" but that "you tried to mind-fuck me last night" and he "won't let you pussy-whip me." I'm not fond of the term pussy-whipped, namely because there's no equivalent to a male dominating a woman in a relationship because that's how it's 'supposed' to be and thus only a woman being the boss needs a word for it, and because it's meant as a comedic insult (and thus helps erase that men can indeed be abused by female partners, and degrade those who are---"oh, he's just pussy-whipped!") but I agree with Haven. Her being good in bed is no reason for her to become the boss of him like she has with everyone else. And an attempt to mind-fuck him indicates she wants to do just that.
Anita's response is not to defend herself or say any of these accusations are wrong, but to say "Then we have a problem." Nice, so she knows exactly what she is, what she does, and that her actual problem with Haven isn't him hurting other lions out of jealousy, it's that he won't bend himself backwards to her will like the rest.
There's another bit about how he thinks she fucked them, she says she didn't, Anita tells Noel to let her go because she needs room, she takes out her knives but lets her gun and holster fall to the floor because she wonders if he might shoot at her with silver if she shoots at him with lead. Uh, since when has Anita shown any vulnerability to silver? I mean, it bugs the fuck out of me that she doesn't, being a fancy panwere and all, but inconsistency bugs me even more. Also, if you SHOOT HIM IN THE FUCKING HEAD with a lead bullet, I'm pretty sure he won't be getting up for awhile even if he can heal from it. Or shoot him in the legs so he can't come at you. BUT DON'T DROP YOUR GUN WHILE HE STILL HAS ONE, YOU ILLOGICAL IDIOT! Just because your bullets can't kill doesn't make them worthless!
Haven asks her if he's supposed to drop his too and come at her with bare hands. Anita says that his reach is twice hers, and her having blades makes it more even since he'll likely have claws. Anita, maybe you should be sure he even cares about 'even' before dropping the gun. I fucking love Haven's response though: "Do you think I won't hurt you? Do you think you've already cut off my balls? That I'm just another big house cat for your collection?"
LKH, you wanted to make me hate this guy, but I'm agreeing with everything he says. And the fact he's only an *attempted* rapist means he's still a better person than Anita is.
Anita says she thinks he will hurt her if he can, he asks if they're better in bed than he is, she tells him again she never touched them before last night, he calls her a lying bitch, Anita says "You're good at fucking, Haven, but that's not a good enough reason to like you." and for once it's Haven who holds the Idiot Ball by asking what that means. Anita points out how he almost killed Noel and Travis last night, and Haven says "They're the male lions of my pride. If they can't defend themselves, then they die. It's the way the lions run their business." Again, something it might have behooved Anita to find out beforehand. Except it turns out he's lying, at least according to one of the werelion women who has woken up. It's the short blonde lady. She's naked and we get a paragraph all about her body. This kind of reminds me of in Circus of the Damned, when we see Melanie in her lamia form, the first thing that Anita describes is not her snake half but how her bare breasts look and the color of her nipples. The same happens here--we learn that her "small breasts" are "high and tight to her body, the swell of hips as slender as the rest of her" but since it turns out she's on Anita's side "it wasn't the slender of starvation diets" but instead from working out.
Also, Anita is sure to mention that "I had more curves" than lion lady, even though we could have fucking figured that out from the fact she has small breasts and slender hips. BUT JUST SO WE NEVER FORGET, NO ONE EVER HAS CURVES LIKE ANITA AND THUS MUST ALWAYS BE COMPARED TO HER! But like Anita she has muscle in addition to curves "like we'd both carved ourselves down into something small and hard and dangerous". Hard except for those mounds of creamy goodness, right?
Haven tells Lion Lady to stay out of this, but she goes past him towards Anita and says "The pride I came from was run by the women. A lot of prides are run by the women, because the men just want to fuck and fight."
Well, badass! Like, I swear I don't just always side with matriarchies automatically, I don't think one sex ruling is better than another, but in the case of the lions...remember how stupid that Jacob and Nicky got around Anita because she was in heat, and only Ellen kept her damn head? If male lions, including Rexes like Jacob, are so damn effected by the desire to fuck and fight, as they seem to be in the case of all the ones we've seen save for Joseph, then it makes a whole lot of sense to put the women in charge. Yeah, they'll go ~into heat~ and shit, but as long as they don't do it all at the same time, the majority are always going to be sane even while a few are going through Anita-mode.
Travis tells Lion Lady that "We're not all like that" and he sounds angry and Anita thinks "good for him" because god forbid anyone ever say anything bad about men. Lion Lady smiles and admits he's right. Even though he's probably only right because he's a low-ranker and thus has no ability to compete with the other males for rank or mating even when the urge hits to do so. And I think it probably DOES hit him to do so despite what he claims. I'm not saying that because he's a man, obviously all men aren't like that, but he is a werelion, and we were shown in Flirt that male werelions, even if that may not be their real personality, can be made like that by a lioness in heat. But no one is ever allowed to make gender-essentialist statements except Anita, as we learned with Haven.
Haven: "They're the weakest lions in our pride."
Lady: "I need a lover; I'm my own fighter."
Of course you're a fucking fighter, you're a goddamn lioness. He didn't say that you needed a fighter. This isn't about what you need at all. He said that they were the weakest lions in the pride. That has fuck-all to do with you. You may not agree with how they're being treated, and that's valid, but your comment still isn't relevant in the slightest. But it sounds like something Anita would say, which is why despite being blonde, she's going to be on Anita's side. She introduces herself to Anita as Kelly Reeder, and instead of introducing herself back, Anita says "You already know my name." Still wouldn't have killed you to be polite, Anita. Sorry, I know that's super-nitpicky and I wouldn't care if it wasn't Anita, it's just...she's so awful that even the non-awful stuff she does is at the point where it seems awful.
According to Kelly, Payne told her that Haven only intended to beat up Noel, but beat Travis too when he stepped in to stop it. Haven asks Kelly if she wants a piece too, and Kelly says "If Anita is going to fight you, then yes." So her turning on Haven isn't because she has problems with how he runs things, but because Anita, a woman she has never met and who is the REASON she was brought here to be pimped to Jean-Claude, is going to fight him and her loyalty is just instantly with Anita for no reason other than I guess maybe that she's a woman?
The second new female werelion says that they can "Count me in" too and we get a paragraph on what she looks like as well. She's nude as well, and it's noted that she must have visited the showers because "her short brown hair had been blow-dried and styled so it framed her face" and thus she's not nude because she just woke up but because "she hadn't bothered with clothes. Even if she'd asked, none of my clothes would have fit her." Anita, you're not the only woman here she could have asked. The reason, by the way, that nothing would fit is because she's close to six feet tall and is "all curves, breasts, and hips." Anita literally just said that a woman is nothing but her sexualized body parts, wow. And like Kelly and Anita she's clearly hit the gym, but Anita says she didn't do it for muscles but to be in-shape. Typical vain woman, wanting to be in shape and healthy and stuff! "There was just something softer, more feminine about her" so we know she must suck "so that it would have seemed wrong for her to muscle herself down like Kelly and me." Anita, there is nothing 'wrong' about what a woman chooses to do with her own damn body, regardless of whether you think she looks better one way or the other. I fucking hate the attitude that women who get big biceps or cut their hair or stop shaving are doing something 'wrong', as if it's some moral outrage because it 'ruins' their looks---since, after all, women just exist for the aesthetic pleasure of others, right? Especially those damn FEMININE women like this one! She's clearly not good for anyhing else, the girly girl, am I right?
Haven tells her to stay out of this because she isn't a fighter, and calls her Rosamond. "Rosamond--it was a name for a princess in a fairy tale or a romance novel heroine." This is another heads-up that she's going to be useless, by the way. Because tough girls are never named Priscilla or Dulcibella or anything, nope, you can tell everything about someone from the name they were born with! At least if you're Anita Blake. "She didn't move like a fighter." Yuuup.
Rosamond says she didn't stop him from hurting Noel because she was afraid of him, but Travis isn't a fighter either and he still tried. Duh, sweetheart, he's a guy, he's always going to be your moral superior in this series. Haven asks if she wants him to hurt her. She says she doesn't but that she can't just stand by a second time while he hurts others and "made her carefully manicured nails into fists" as she says that she'll side with "our Regina" against Haven. Well, at least her reasons seem to make more sense than Kelly's--she hates how Haven treats others, but knows she can't do anything about it on her own, so the second it looks like the other Pride powerhouse, the Regina, is going to take him on, she'll side with her because she actually does have a chance. I feel sorry for her, though; she has no idea she'll be getting a way worse bargain with Anita in charge instead. Also lol manicures, what a gurl, I bet you Anita has never had one in her life because she's a super awesome tough guy like that!
Haven says "She is not my Regina" and Kelly says that "She helped me heal two of our lions with the power of her lion. Any werelion can hurt and maim, but healing is rare. My mother could do it, and I'll take a Regina who can raise power and share it to heal over one who can beat us to death." It's okay, I'm sure Anita can do both! "We can always bring over more werelions for muscle, Haven" wait does she mean deliberately infecting people? She didn't say recruit, she said bring over, that usually means turning "but healing and magic, that's hard to find." ANNOUNCEMENT: ANITA IS SPECIAL! Also, Kelly's mom is a werelion too? I guess they must have both been infected, maybe in the same attack, despite feline therianthropy being so difficult to catch, because her having inherited it from her mother would not make sense in this canon, remember LKH? The whole plot with Gina? Remember?
Haven says that Anita can't even free her own beast from her body, but Kelly and Rosamund argue that her beast is still real and "like a bonfire of magic and power". Kelly says that "A pride is supposed to be like a family. You've made it into an armed camp." And where was Anita while he did it, huh? It's her fault he's here, and if he's done shitty things as a Rex, let it not be forgotten that she was Regina this whole time and did nothing to stop it until it got to this point. She doesn't even seem to have been AWARE for fuck's sake. She's queen of all these weregroups, but god forbid she ever take any active responsibility for them in ways that don't involve fucking.
Haven asks if they think they can win against him, one of the lion ladies says she's willing to find out. Anita thinks that "I didn't know what to say. I'd never had anyone come to my side of the fence like this; I was always the only girl with all the men, with rare exceptions like Claudia. What did I say to these two women I barely knew?" She decides to say that "It's good not to be the only girl in the fight for once." Anita, you never had to be the only girl. You are neck-deep in preternaturals, which include lots of female ones who are just as damn powerful as the men, you just refuse to have anything to do with them or let them near your harem. That's why you're the only girl with all the men! Also, I love how males are "men" but females, including Anita herself, are just "girls."
Kelly grins at her fiercly, and Rosamond says that "This is Kelly's idea of female bonding." I'm somewhat amused that the tough, muscular, Anita-approved one is the blonde, and that the soft, feminine, can't-fight one is the brunette. I bet LKH thinks she's totally shocking us, that she heard complaints about how women, especially blondes, are portrayed in this series and thinks this proves that accusation wrong. Nope, 'fraid not LKH. You're still a misogynistic blonde-hating butt.
Claudia comes in wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, since she has clothes at the Circus because she lives there part of the time according to Anita. She wants to join the fight, and Anita notices that she is "taller than Haven by inches, and broader through the shoulders" and "even her biceps were bigger, as they strained against the T-shirt." So out of the three 'good' females we have, all are flawed in some way against the in-universe beauty standard (Anita)--Claudia is a massive hulking Amazon, Kelly has small tits, and Rosamund is tall with short hair. And according to the wiki that I checked, none of them will reappear in any of the books after this one that are currently out. My guess is they die or just sort of disappear like Claudia had until now. Again, I have a strong feeling they exist just because LKH is trying to prove us haters wrong but she can't keep it up.
Haven tells Claudia that this is lion business, and Anita feels insulted that the way he's eying Claudia suggests he sees her as more of a threat then the rest of them. Let's see, two short women, one of whose fighting style he knows nothing of, the other one of which no longer actually fights at all if she can't just ardeur everything into submission, and a third woman who, though tall, he says he knows is not a fighter...meanwhile he's a tall muscular guy who is a trained fighter, and Claudia is an even taller and more muscular woman who is also probably a trained fighter, judging by her bodyguard role. Sounds to me like Haven is just being logical.
Claudia tells Haven that she is Anita's bodyguard and so it's her job not to let Haven hurt her. What kind of bodyguard fights alongside their charge versus simply defending them? You can't really keep them out of harm's way if you're both actively in combat.
"Just the tone of her voice let me know that she liked Haven even less than she liked Richard." The only feelings that the Good Female is allowed to have towards Anita's men are hostile ones so that she is guaranteed not to try to steal them. But of course it is awful and evil to ever harbor any ill-will towards her sweeties, so this is only allowed when said sweetie has become the new whipping boy for the series and LKH wants him to be bashed but doesn't want Anita to look bad, and thus lets someone else do the bashing who she won't care if the readers end up hating for it.
Haven asks if they think they can beat him together, Anita says she thinks so because "I'd never seen Kelly fight, and Rosamond was going to be less than useful, but Claudia I knew." You know what, screw you, Anita, Rosamond might well be awesome. Sure, she's not overtly muscled, but she's a wereanimal, she doesn't have to be in order to still be insanely strong and agile, and as for "not moving like a fighter" how does a fighter even move? Are you telling me a boxer, a street fighter, a karate master, and capoeira probationer all move the same way? They don't move the same when they fight, why should they move in the same way when they're not fighting in some Universal Definitely A Fighter way?
There's some back and forth between Haven and Anita, and then he charges with insane speed and "then the fight was on." The chapter ends there. Again, I'm baffled as to WHY the chapter ends there, because the next one doesn't begin with the aftermath of the fight after skipping over it or anything sort of scene change or time lapse at all.
Chapter 22 starts with "Rosamond went down in the first few blows. She lay on the ground bleeding and dazed" because Anita is never wrong about anything and so of course Rosamond failed because Anita said she would. This chapter lasts a little less than two pages, and is a fight scene that goes like this:
- Anita slices Haven twice with her knives, then he kicks her legs out from under her
- Claudia kicks Haven across the room and into the fireplace and "the force of it shook the room." Badass!
- Haven gets ahold of Claudia, she tries to kick his face, he blocks her, she's trapped
- Kelly comes in on his right, Anita on his left. Anita gets the knife between his ribs and tries to reach the heart. Kelly does something on her side, but Anita can't see what.
- Haven uses Claudia "like a club" and throws her into Anita. They land on the floor with Claudia on top of Anita. I think they might have both landed on Rosamond because Anita says that "at least this time an unconscious body broke my fall" and Claudia clearly isn't unconscious, since she rolls off Anita and gets to her feet.
- Anita gets up too
- "Kelly and Haven were trading blows"
- Claudia comes in at Haven's side
- Haven kicks at Kelly, Kelly blocks it with her arm, Kelly's arm breaks
- Haven kicks Kelly in the side of her face, Kelly "went down and didn't get back up"
The fight then takes a pause for them to talk at each other. Haven proclaims that "no woman can beat me one on one." Was he always a sexist, or is he just randomly one now that LKH wants him killed? Claudia says she underestimated him but won't do it again, he asks if she thinks she can take him, she says yes. Anita then tells Claudia not to "make this about some macho guy crap." Anita, you are the champ at making everything at macho guy crap, what position are you in to scold anyone else for it? Secondly, I don't see how this is 'macho guy crap' at all. Claudia is doing her duty as a bodyguard, Haven asked if she thought he could beat him, she said yes. That's all. Claudia says that "it's not macho crap. It's a relief." because "I've wanted to beat the shit out of a couple of men in your life for a while now, Anita." That makes two of us, but I bet Claudia isn't talking about the same ones that I hate. Also, god forbid that Claudia ever have had a conversation about this with Anita before, as if her opinion as a 'friend' counted or anything, how ridiculous! No, she just had to wait in obscurity until LKH got mad at somebody and decided to throw her at his avatar.
Haven tells Claudia to "Bring it, bitch" and before Anita can say anything to stop her "She brought it." Why she would want to stop her, I don't know, her words not mine.
And the chapter ends there. Again, I don't really understand why. The next chapter that finishes the fight is just two pages too. This all could have been one chapter.
Oh well, I found the fight scene enjoyable. I'd forgotten that LKH can write some decent action when she's not obsessing over hair color and nipples. I do notice though that after Anita gets up after Claudia gets off her, she doesn't really do anything. She just stands there while Kelly gets taken out and Claudia takes on Haven solo. What's up with that?
By the way, I ship Kelly and Rosamond. Kelly said she needs a lover and that she's her own fighter, Rosamond is not a fighter...hey, ships have been based on less!
Also, this is the same book in which they turn up first and in which Claudia will last appear. Anyone think maybe that's connected to how Darla quits and is replaced by two other women as LKH's staff? Hey, if that is the case, then Kelly/Rosamond has sorta-canon support, since said other two women were a couple!
fucking. brilliant.
BULLET, CHAPTER 21 & 22
Anita is digging through the pile of sleeping/unconscious bodies looking for her weapons, but so far she's only found ones that aren't hers. Nathaniel, wearing a pair of cutoffs, is helping her and his hair is all wet and hanging everything and I don't know how the tug/weight of that much soaking hair doesn't just snap his ~delicate and fragile~ little neck. "The six of us in triumvirates had woken first" Anita, there are five of you in a triumvirate. It would be six, but you're in both. You, JC, Richard, Nathaniel, Damian. That's five people. Or did she somehow make a triumvirate earlier with herself, Nathaniel, and Micah despite that making no sense when the definition of a triumvirate is a vampire, their animal servant, and their human servant? I think she might have. I can't even remember in the midst of all this foolishness. "and then it seemed to go by dominance and power level."
She decides not to mention her encounter with Haven just now because he hadn't hurt her. Uh, HE TRIED TO RAPE YOU? And would have done it if not for you threatening him off with your doomcrotch powers? There are some characters for whom "well, nothing actually happened, so I don't want to make trouble" would work for as a reason not to come forward about that. Anita is not one of them. "We had to do something about Haven, but I wasn't sure exactly what." She was planning to KILL Haven earlier. But then AFTER he walks in, has nearly killed two werelions, and tries to rape Anita, suddenly she's NOT sure that he should be killed and instead has no idea what to do about him? She said earlier that she needed "an excuse" to kill Haven. She sure as fuck has one now. And yet now it's like the thought never entered her head at all. Again, for some characters I could see "talk big about wanting to kill him, but then actually chicken out when you have the opportunity to" being the case, but not Anita. She's way too vengeful, hateful, and callous for that, as well as determined to prove she's the most heartless badass executioner ever.
Honestly, I can't help but wonder if her reason is that Haven appealed to her ego with all his talk about how crazy about her he is and how Not Like Other Girls she is.
JC is making phone calls to other MotCs to find out if they're alive, and through doing this he finds out how early in the day they wake. "Just by leaving messages this early in the day, Jean-Claude was letting them know that he had woken first. It was a subtle type of one-upmanship among vampires. The earlier you woke, the more powerful you were, as a general rule." Ah, subtlety. I'm amazed that Anita even recognizes it when she sees it. Tonight, however, a lot of vampires in St. Louis are waking up early on his power rather than their own, because he took the power he got from the orgy and shoved it into them. "If I'd been in charge of the power I'd have probably raised an army of zombies in the closest cemetery." Interesting. It seems that for both vampires and animators/necromancers, any power you raise pretty much has to either be used immediately or displaced into others. They clearly can't just save it for later use, or else surely JC would have held on to it for fighting against the MOAD. I wonder, what happens if they don't use it or send it into other vampires/zombies? Will it just go away on its own after a bit? Will they explode? Anita seemed to HAVE to use it in Flirt, she felt compelled to, so maybe it's not even a choice, you have to do something with it and it will MAKE you, whether it's using it or sending it to others.
I didn't even consider these implications the first time I read over this chapter, but going back over it to spork made me slow down and think about it. I never realized this, but sporking gives me a better understanding of stuff I'd usually miss. Wow.
Anita continues to root through the tangled-up bodies of the vampires and wereanimals, and finds that it feels "unnervingly like a crime scene with a lot of dead, since the vampires didn't breathe." As used to lying in bed with 'dead' naked vampires as she is, I don't really buy this. She's found her Browning and her stupid big spine-knife, but has yet to find her wrist sheaths, backup gun, or her cell phone. She's not concerned about that though because "cell phones couldn't kill people. I wanted all the killing things back under my control. I'd check phone messages later." Firstly, she's said there are a lot of weapons that aren't hers, so even if she finds her stuff, all the "killing things" are not going to be under her control anyway. Secondly, considering that the first thing that happened after Padma and Belle was Bibi calling in with advice on how to beat the MOAD, I don't think she should be dissing cell phones as something that can wait to be found later. It would serve her right if someone tried to call her with some super-vital information and she missed it because she was too busy digging around for those precious guns that haven't gotten used in the last two books.
Noel has woken up and grabs her wrist and they both get a flashback of her giving him head. She notices he has lost his glasses, and this makes his eyes look bigger. Odd, usually glasses are what make eyes look bigger. He also looks younger without them. Squick. Not the first thing I wanted to hear after she talks about blowing him. She asks how he's feeling, he says he thought he was dead, she says he almost was, he says she saved him and asks how. Instead of telling him, she asks what he remembers, he says he remembers the sex but not much else, and he asks why he doesn't hurt. Anita tells him, "You're a shapeshifter. You guys heal quick." Anita, he might have been out of it for some stuff, but that doesn't give him amnesia so bad you need to remind him he's a therian, for crying out loud.
Noel then tells her that he doesn't heal fast. Weird, I wonder why. Also, he's nude and "it bothered me a little because I'd put Noel in the protect category; no, let's be honest, I thought of him as too innocent for me." I'm not grasping why this would make her uncomfortable to see him naked. She sees a lot of the wereanimals naked, it's repeatedly stated that this is how they are, and many are under her protection, including many that are not fucking her, such as Vivian. Oh wait, the issue is that he's innocent. So...innocents can't be seen nude? She doesn't class the other therians as innocent? "To innocent for me" Ohhh, right, it's all about her. Meaning she doesn't want to see him naked if he's not on her banging list. I get it now.
Travis awakes and says that Noel heals almost as slowly as a human. That's...odd. He doesn't say why either. I guess maybe it's supposed to be because he's such a weak lion, but that wouldn't make sense. After all, Nathaniel is a very weak leopard, and he went through loads of horrible torture when Gabriel pimped him out specifically BECAUSE he could heal from it, and quickly so. Have we ever encountered any kind of healing differential before in these books, like alphas healing faster?
Travis asks why he has three vampire bites on him, and why he doesn't feel worse than he does. Instead of answering him, Anita tells him that "Richard and I had eight apiece" and they "looked at me with wide eyes" and Anita thinks about how much younger they are not just in years but in terms of experience. Gawd, Anita. First she has to make sure she one-ups them with bites, then she has to sneer down her nose about how she can just TELL they're these totally freshfaced little greenhorns who have never seen the woes and darkness and such that she, Anita Blake, has faced!
Noel says that Anita and Richard should be dead from that much blood loss. Again, what is with the presumption that the vampires were sucking blood at all? Nathaniel asks why they didn't die, and recounts a time when he had this many vampires feed on him (he has six bites) and he was ill for over a day, but not only does he not feel ill now, he feels downright good.
Maybe because they didn't feed on you, they just bit you? And maybe you feel good because your master, Anita, presumably got some energy from all that ardeur even though JC got the bulk of the power? Anita explains what happened, that "The Lover of Death kept trying to force the power into eating each other, killing each other. Jean-Claude kept the power going to sex and healing." Nathaniel asks if that means that Morte D'Amour "meant to bleed us to death?" and Anita nods.
At first I thought "but that can't be right, the bites happened during the orgy, and that was AFTER it was turned into the ardeur by Jean-Claude" but then I read Anita's wording and it looks like instead of fleeing, Morte 'amour/MOAD repeatedly tried to turn the ardeur back to killing urges and JC kept turning it back to the ardeur, so the bites are from vampires briefly giving in to the killing urge and biting to bleed others. Okay, so I stand corrected on the idea that the vampires were just sex-biting and not food-biting, but how did Anita know that? How did they ALL know that, if they woke up feeling fine? Do feeding-bites just LOOK different from other bites, I guess? I suppose they must, since Anita still claims they were to feed/bleed even though she said they were in spots not usually used for that.
Anita realizes she's still holding Noel's hand. She debates on whether to let go or not. "I'd had metaphysical sex with him" No, you had physical sex, just under under metaphysical influence "and saved his life; how much hand-holding did I owe him?" Owe him? Owe him? Just as in Flirt, Anita doesn't seem to get that affection and gestures thereof are not like currency. You don't owe them. Ever. To anyone. You just choose to give them or not based on if you want to or not, if you feel to or not. An affectionate gesture given because you feel like it's owed is not affectionate at all.
Nathaniel has found Anita's cell phone, and Travis joins him in searching for the weapons. Noel stays by her side, strokes her arm, and asks if everything is alright. "I didn't like that he kept touching me. It wasn't that it felt bad, in fact, it felt nice, but I did not need to have adopted another lion. I had too many lions already." YOU ARE REGINA, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE LIONS. I mean, if she means 'adopted' like with Nathaniel and Nicky, then damn straight she doesn't need another, but if she means to protects and watch out for, well, the whole damn Pride is her responsibility in that department...for all that she's done jackshit for them.
Haven enters the room, naked but holding a gun. Anita thinks about how he's handsome and well-endowed but then says that this "didn't make up for the faults of his character." I think she must be trying to convince herself here, because I think the readers sure as fuck know that already. Noel is terrified and hides behind Anita. "I could feel him shaking, and even though he was nude, there was nothing sexy about it." Why would there be something sexy about it? Does Anita usually find it sexy when men are trembling in terror? Wait, no, don't answer that. She also tries to convince us that she finds Haven less hot now, but the fact she's bringing it up at all makes me less convinced than I might have been if she'd just acted. Especially when she talks about his eyes and how his hair is a richer blue when it's wet from the shower.
He says "I thought I made myself clear, but I guess not. That's okay, I can be more clear."
According to Anita, she's the only awake dominant in the room; all others are unconscious or in the showers. She reminds us that she found her Browning, but it only has lead, not silver, so she can't kill him. She has one silver wrist sheath blade and her big stupid knife but knows that he's trained really well so fighting him with blades doesn't have great odd. She also says that his arm reach and leg reach double hers...does that mean his arms and legs are twice as long as hers?
Anita tells Haven she can't let him hurt Travis and Noel. He tells her is Rex, and that even though having sex with her is "a-fucking-mazing" but that "you tried to mind-fuck me last night" and he "won't let you pussy-whip me." I'm not fond of the term pussy-whipped, namely because there's no equivalent to a male dominating a woman in a relationship because that's how it's 'supposed' to be and thus only a woman being the boss needs a word for it, and because it's meant as a comedic insult (and thus helps erase that men can indeed be abused by female partners, and degrade those who are---"oh, he's just pussy-whipped!") but I agree with Haven. Her being good in bed is no reason for her to become the boss of him like she has with everyone else. And an attempt to mind-fuck him indicates she wants to do just that.
Anita's response is not to defend herself or say any of these accusations are wrong, but to say "Then we have a problem." Nice, so she knows exactly what she is, what she does, and that her actual problem with Haven isn't him hurting other lions out of jealousy, it's that he won't bend himself backwards to her will like the rest.
There's another bit about how he thinks she fucked them, she says she didn't, Anita tells Noel to let her go because she needs room, she takes out her knives but lets her gun and holster fall to the floor because she wonders if he might shoot at her with silver if she shoots at him with lead. Uh, since when has Anita shown any vulnerability to silver? I mean, it bugs the fuck out of me that she doesn't, being a fancy panwere and all, but inconsistency bugs me even more. Also, if you SHOOT HIM IN THE FUCKING HEAD with a lead bullet, I'm pretty sure he won't be getting up for awhile even if he can heal from it. Or shoot him in the legs so he can't come at you. BUT DON'T DROP YOUR GUN WHILE HE STILL HAS ONE, YOU ILLOGICAL IDIOT! Just because your bullets can't kill doesn't make them worthless!
Haven asks her if he's supposed to drop his too and come at her with bare hands. Anita says that his reach is twice hers, and her having blades makes it more even since he'll likely have claws. Anita, maybe you should be sure he even cares about 'even' before dropping the gun. I fucking love Haven's response though: "Do you think I won't hurt you? Do you think you've already cut off my balls? That I'm just another big house cat for your collection?"
LKH, you wanted to make me hate this guy, but I'm agreeing with everything he says. And the fact he's only an *attempted* rapist means he's still a better person than Anita is.
Anita says she thinks he will hurt her if he can, he asks if they're better in bed than he is, she tells him again she never touched them before last night, he calls her a lying bitch, Anita says "You're good at fucking, Haven, but that's not a good enough reason to like you." and for once it's Haven who holds the Idiot Ball by asking what that means. Anita points out how he almost killed Noel and Travis last night, and Haven says "They're the male lions of my pride. If they can't defend themselves, then they die. It's the way the lions run their business." Again, something it might have behooved Anita to find out beforehand. Except it turns out he's lying, at least according to one of the werelion women who has woken up. It's the short blonde lady. She's naked and we get a paragraph all about her body. This kind of reminds me of in Circus of the Damned, when we see Melanie in her lamia form, the first thing that Anita describes is not her snake half but how her bare breasts look and the color of her nipples. The same happens here--we learn that her "small breasts" are "high and tight to her body, the swell of hips as slender as the rest of her" but since it turns out she's on Anita's side "it wasn't the slender of starvation diets" but instead from working out.
Also, Anita is sure to mention that "I had more curves" than lion lady, even though we could have fucking figured that out from the fact she has small breasts and slender hips. BUT JUST SO WE NEVER FORGET, NO ONE EVER HAS CURVES LIKE ANITA AND THUS MUST ALWAYS BE COMPARED TO HER! But like Anita she has muscle in addition to curves "like we'd both carved ourselves down into something small and hard and dangerous". Hard except for those mounds of creamy goodness, right?
Haven tells Lion Lady to stay out of this, but she goes past him towards Anita and says "The pride I came from was run by the women. A lot of prides are run by the women, because the men just want to fuck and fight."
Well, badass! Like, I swear I don't just always side with matriarchies automatically, I don't think one sex ruling is better than another, but in the case of the lions...remember how stupid that Jacob and Nicky got around Anita because she was in heat, and only Ellen kept her damn head? If male lions, including Rexes like Jacob, are so damn effected by the desire to fuck and fight, as they seem to be in the case of all the ones we've seen save for Joseph, then it makes a whole lot of sense to put the women in charge. Yeah, they'll go ~into heat~ and shit, but as long as they don't do it all at the same time, the majority are always going to be sane even while a few are going through Anita-mode.
Travis tells Lion Lady that "We're not all like that" and he sounds angry and Anita thinks "good for him" because god forbid anyone ever say anything bad about men. Lion Lady smiles and admits he's right. Even though he's probably only right because he's a low-ranker and thus has no ability to compete with the other males for rank or mating even when the urge hits to do so. And I think it probably DOES hit him to do so despite what he claims. I'm not saying that because he's a man, obviously all men aren't like that, but he is a werelion, and we were shown in Flirt that male werelions, even if that may not be their real personality, can be made like that by a lioness in heat. But no one is ever allowed to make gender-essentialist statements except Anita, as we learned with Haven.
Haven: "They're the weakest lions in our pride."
Lady: "I need a lover; I'm my own fighter."
Of course you're a fucking fighter, you're a goddamn lioness. He didn't say that you needed a fighter. This isn't about what you need at all. He said that they were the weakest lions in the pride. That has fuck-all to do with you. You may not agree with how they're being treated, and that's valid, but your comment still isn't relevant in the slightest. But it sounds like something Anita would say, which is why despite being blonde, she's going to be on Anita's side. She introduces herself to Anita as Kelly Reeder, and instead of introducing herself back, Anita says "You already know my name." Still wouldn't have killed you to be polite, Anita. Sorry, I know that's super-nitpicky and I wouldn't care if it wasn't Anita, it's just...she's so awful that even the non-awful stuff she does is at the point where it seems awful.
According to Kelly, Payne told her that Haven only intended to beat up Noel, but beat Travis too when he stepped in to stop it. Haven asks Kelly if she wants a piece too, and Kelly says "If Anita is going to fight you, then yes." So her turning on Haven isn't because she has problems with how he runs things, but because Anita, a woman she has never met and who is the REASON she was brought here to be pimped to Jean-Claude, is going to fight him and her loyalty is just instantly with Anita for no reason other than I guess maybe that she's a woman?
The second new female werelion says that they can "Count me in" too and we get a paragraph on what she looks like as well. She's nude as well, and it's noted that she must have visited the showers because "her short brown hair had been blow-dried and styled so it framed her face" and thus she's not nude because she just woke up but because "she hadn't bothered with clothes. Even if she'd asked, none of my clothes would have fit her." Anita, you're not the only woman here she could have asked. The reason, by the way, that nothing would fit is because she's close to six feet tall and is "all curves, breasts, and hips." Anita literally just said that a woman is nothing but her sexualized body parts, wow. And like Kelly and Anita she's clearly hit the gym, but Anita says she didn't do it for muscles but to be in-shape. Typical vain woman, wanting to be in shape and healthy and stuff! "There was just something softer, more feminine about her" so we know she must suck "so that it would have seemed wrong for her to muscle herself down like Kelly and me." Anita, there is nothing 'wrong' about what a woman chooses to do with her own damn body, regardless of whether you think she looks better one way or the other. I fucking hate the attitude that women who get big biceps or cut their hair or stop shaving are doing something 'wrong', as if it's some moral outrage because it 'ruins' their looks---since, after all, women just exist for the aesthetic pleasure of others, right? Especially those damn FEMININE women like this one! She's clearly not good for anyhing else, the girly girl, am I right?
Haven tells her to stay out of this because she isn't a fighter, and calls her Rosamond. "Rosamond--it was a name for a princess in a fairy tale or a romance novel heroine." This is another heads-up that she's going to be useless, by the way. Because tough girls are never named Priscilla or Dulcibella or anything, nope, you can tell everything about someone from the name they were born with! At least if you're Anita Blake. "She didn't move like a fighter." Yuuup.
Rosamond says she didn't stop him from hurting Noel because she was afraid of him, but Travis isn't a fighter either and he still tried. Duh, sweetheart, he's a guy, he's always going to be your moral superior in this series. Haven asks if she wants him to hurt her. She says she doesn't but that she can't just stand by a second time while he hurts others and "made her carefully manicured nails into fists" as she says that she'll side with "our Regina" against Haven. Well, at least her reasons seem to make more sense than Kelly's--she hates how Haven treats others, but knows she can't do anything about it on her own, so the second it looks like the other Pride powerhouse, the Regina, is going to take him on, she'll side with her because she actually does have a chance. I feel sorry for her, though; she has no idea she'll be getting a way worse bargain with Anita in charge instead. Also lol manicures, what a gurl, I bet you Anita has never had one in her life because she's a super awesome tough guy like that!
Haven says "She is not my Regina" and Kelly says that "She helped me heal two of our lions with the power of her lion. Any werelion can hurt and maim, but healing is rare. My mother could do it, and I'll take a Regina who can raise power and share it to heal over one who can beat us to death." It's okay, I'm sure Anita can do both! "We can always bring over more werelions for muscle, Haven" wait does she mean deliberately infecting people? She didn't say recruit, she said bring over, that usually means turning "but healing and magic, that's hard to find." ANNOUNCEMENT: ANITA IS SPECIAL! Also, Kelly's mom is a werelion too? I guess they must have both been infected, maybe in the same attack, despite feline therianthropy being so difficult to catch, because her having inherited it from her mother would not make sense in this canon, remember LKH? The whole plot with Gina? Remember?
Haven says that Anita can't even free her own beast from her body, but Kelly and Rosamund argue that her beast is still real and "like a bonfire of magic and power". Kelly says that "A pride is supposed to be like a family. You've made it into an armed camp." And where was Anita while he did it, huh? It's her fault he's here, and if he's done shitty things as a Rex, let it not be forgotten that she was Regina this whole time and did nothing to stop it until it got to this point. She doesn't even seem to have been AWARE for fuck's sake. She's queen of all these weregroups, but god forbid she ever take any active responsibility for them in ways that don't involve fucking.
Haven asks if they think they can win against him, one of the lion ladies says she's willing to find out. Anita thinks that "I didn't know what to say. I'd never had anyone come to my side of the fence like this; I was always the only girl with all the men, with rare exceptions like Claudia. What did I say to these two women I barely knew?" She decides to say that "It's good not to be the only girl in the fight for once." Anita, you never had to be the only girl. You are neck-deep in preternaturals, which include lots of female ones who are just as damn powerful as the men, you just refuse to have anything to do with them or let them near your harem. That's why you're the only girl with all the men! Also, I love how males are "men" but females, including Anita herself, are just "girls."
Kelly grins at her fiercly, and Rosamond says that "This is Kelly's idea of female bonding." I'm somewhat amused that the tough, muscular, Anita-approved one is the blonde, and that the soft, feminine, can't-fight one is the brunette. I bet LKH thinks she's totally shocking us, that she heard complaints about how women, especially blondes, are portrayed in this series and thinks this proves that accusation wrong. Nope, 'fraid not LKH. You're still a misogynistic blonde-hating butt.
Claudia comes in wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, since she has clothes at the Circus because she lives there part of the time according to Anita. She wants to join the fight, and Anita notices that she is "taller than Haven by inches, and broader through the shoulders" and "even her biceps were bigger, as they strained against the T-shirt." So out of the three 'good' females we have, all are flawed in some way against the in-universe beauty standard (Anita)--Claudia is a massive hulking Amazon, Kelly has small tits, and Rosamund is tall with short hair. And according to the wiki that I checked, none of them will reappear in any of the books after this one that are currently out. My guess is they die or just sort of disappear like Claudia had until now. Again, I have a strong feeling they exist just because LKH is trying to prove us haters wrong but she can't keep it up.
Haven tells Claudia that this is lion business, and Anita feels insulted that the way he's eying Claudia suggests he sees her as more of a threat then the rest of them. Let's see, two short women, one of whose fighting style he knows nothing of, the other one of which no longer actually fights at all if she can't just ardeur everything into submission, and a third woman who, though tall, he says he knows is not a fighter...meanwhile he's a tall muscular guy who is a trained fighter, and Claudia is an even taller and more muscular woman who is also probably a trained fighter, judging by her bodyguard role. Sounds to me like Haven is just being logical.
Claudia tells Haven that she is Anita's bodyguard and so it's her job not to let Haven hurt her. What kind of bodyguard fights alongside their charge versus simply defending them? You can't really keep them out of harm's way if you're both actively in combat.
"Just the tone of her voice let me know that she liked Haven even less than she liked Richard." The only feelings that the Good Female is allowed to have towards Anita's men are hostile ones so that she is guaranteed not to try to steal them. But of course it is awful and evil to ever harbor any ill-will towards her sweeties, so this is only allowed when said sweetie has become the new whipping boy for the series and LKH wants him to be bashed but doesn't want Anita to look bad, and thus lets someone else do the bashing who she won't care if the readers end up hating for it.
Haven asks if they think they can beat him together, Anita says she thinks so because "I'd never seen Kelly fight, and Rosamond was going to be less than useful, but Claudia I knew." You know what, screw you, Anita, Rosamond might well be awesome. Sure, she's not overtly muscled, but she's a wereanimal, she doesn't have to be in order to still be insanely strong and agile, and as for "not moving like a fighter" how does a fighter even move? Are you telling me a boxer, a street fighter, a karate master, and capoeira probationer all move the same way? They don't move the same when they fight, why should they move in the same way when they're not fighting in some Universal Definitely A Fighter way?
There's some back and forth between Haven and Anita, and then he charges with insane speed and "then the fight was on." The chapter ends there. Again, I'm baffled as to WHY the chapter ends there, because the next one doesn't begin with the aftermath of the fight after skipping over it or anything sort of scene change or time lapse at all.
Chapter 22 starts with "Rosamond went down in the first few blows. She lay on the ground bleeding and dazed" because Anita is never wrong about anything and so of course Rosamond failed because Anita said she would. This chapter lasts a little less than two pages, and is a fight scene that goes like this:
- Anita slices Haven twice with her knives, then he kicks her legs out from under her
- Claudia kicks Haven across the room and into the fireplace and "the force of it shook the room." Badass!
- Haven gets ahold of Claudia, she tries to kick his face, he blocks her, she's trapped
- Kelly comes in on his right, Anita on his left. Anita gets the knife between his ribs and tries to reach the heart. Kelly does something on her side, but Anita can't see what.
- Haven uses Claudia "like a club" and throws her into Anita. They land on the floor with Claudia on top of Anita. I think they might have both landed on Rosamond because Anita says that "at least this time an unconscious body broke my fall" and Claudia clearly isn't unconscious, since she rolls off Anita and gets to her feet.
- Anita gets up too
- "Kelly and Haven were trading blows"
- Claudia comes in at Haven's side
- Haven kicks at Kelly, Kelly blocks it with her arm, Kelly's arm breaks
- Haven kicks Kelly in the side of her face, Kelly "went down and didn't get back up"
The fight then takes a pause for them to talk at each other. Haven proclaims that "no woman can beat me one on one." Was he always a sexist, or is he just randomly one now that LKH wants him killed? Claudia says she underestimated him but won't do it again, he asks if she thinks she can take him, she says yes. Anita then tells Claudia not to "make this about some macho guy crap." Anita, you are the champ at making everything at macho guy crap, what position are you in to scold anyone else for it? Secondly, I don't see how this is 'macho guy crap' at all. Claudia is doing her duty as a bodyguard, Haven asked if she thought he could beat him, she said yes. That's all. Claudia says that "it's not macho crap. It's a relief." because "I've wanted to beat the shit out of a couple of men in your life for a while now, Anita." That makes two of us, but I bet Claudia isn't talking about the same ones that I hate. Also, god forbid that Claudia ever have had a conversation about this with Anita before, as if her opinion as a 'friend' counted or anything, how ridiculous! No, she just had to wait in obscurity until LKH got mad at somebody and decided to throw her at his avatar.
Haven tells Claudia to "Bring it, bitch" and before Anita can say anything to stop her "She brought it." Why she would want to stop her, I don't know, her words not mine.
And the chapter ends there. Again, I don't really understand why. The next chapter that finishes the fight is just two pages too. This all could have been one chapter.
Oh well, I found the fight scene enjoyable. I'd forgotten that LKH can write some decent action when she's not obsessing over hair color and nipples. I do notice though that after Anita gets up after Claudia gets off her, she doesn't really do anything. She just stands there while Kelly gets taken out and Claudia takes on Haven solo. What's up with that?
By the way, I ship Kelly and Rosamond. Kelly said she needs a lover and that she's her own fighter, Rosamond is not a fighter...hey, ships have been based on less!
Also, this is the same book in which they turn up first and in which Claudia will last appear. Anyone think maybe that's connected to how Darla quits and is replaced by two other women as LKH's staff? Hey, if that is the case, then Kelly/Rosamond has sorta-canon support, since said other two women were a couple!
no subject
Date: 2013-04-24 05:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-24 05:23 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2013-04-24 06:06 pm (UTC)That makes Joseph an even better leader than previously thought. Everyone keeps saying that "Joseph's pride was weak," but from all I've gathered, they aren't all deranged headcases, can function in normal society in a human way, generally didn't bother anyone else, and avoided getting involved with
the mobthe vampires. Before Anita came and shat on it. My head canon now states that the lower level werelions (I refuse to consider them "weaker" because moral fortitude is no small thing) are secretly passing information to law enforcement and there's an enormous sting operation in the works that will destroy the vampiric power structure in the US. Some therian groups (such as the lions, Bibiana's tigers and the rats) have agreed to send candidates to train up to take part. Because the FBI has determined that an empire run by JC would be awful for normal humans.Yeah, they'll go ~into heat~ and shit, but as long as they don't do it all at the same time, the majority are always going to be sane even while a few are going through Anita-mode.
Even if they do go into heat all at the same time, if you know when it's coming then you can plan for it (an alien concept to Anita). You know you are going to be really up for sexytimes at a certain time? Plan a nice vacation with your partner(s) where you can spend the entire time in bed until the urge fades, far away from everyone else.
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Date: 2013-04-24 06:10 pm (UTC)PLANNING AHEAD TO *AVOID* BEING FORCED TO HAVE SEX? WHAT SERIES ARE *YOU* READING?
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Date: 2013-04-24 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-04-24 06:19 pm (UTC)Because tough girls are never named Priscilla or Dulcibella or anything, nope, you can tell everything about someone from the name they were born with! At least if you're Anita Blake.
Buffy Summers would like a word with you, LKH.
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Date: 2013-04-24 06:29 pm (UTC)I didn't think of this, but you are completely right. I hate her now more than ever, especially since she's not acknowledged as it being her fault and for these reasons.
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Date: 2013-04-24 07:51 pm (UTC)I ought to press charges against LKH for assault because she is just cutting me with her edginess.
Wow that joke sounded so much better in my head lol.
Anyway, good luck taking care of that bunny. I hear they are hard to clean up after. Onetime these birds who I guess were just learning to fly crashed into my window. I used to have a cat and he would've eaten them or something so my family and I cared for the birds for a few days. The mother would not stop flying back and fourth chirping but the babies did get better. They flew off later with their mother.
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Date: 2013-04-24 10:42 pm (UTC)And yeah, I think that's the reaction LKH is going for, except sincere instead of sarcastic.
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Date: 2013-04-24 09:08 pm (UTC)GastonAnita~Douses lights like
GastonAnita~In a "wrestling match" no one bites like
GastonAnita~For there's no one as
burly and brawnypetite and curvy(As you see I have mounds of creamy goodness to spare)
Not a bit of her is
scraggly or scrawnyblonde or gangly(That's right!
And every last inch of me is worshiped with care!)
No one hits like
GastonAnita~Matches wits like
GastonAnita~In a fit-throwing match nobody fits like
GastonAnita~(I'm especially good at victim-blaming!)
No one shoots like
GastonAnita~MakesTakes those beauts likeGastonAnita~Then goes tromping around wearing boots (instead of heels) like
GastonAnita~(I use non-con in all of my boy-toy taming!)
My what a "guy", that
GastonAnita~This is all I got out of this whole fucking thing. That, and I also ship Kelly/Rosamond. Haven clearly needs to go to the clinic and get treated for his bad case of Anitablakeritis. Anita still has her head up her ass; I wonder if she can see her pancreas yet, she has to be close.
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Date: 2013-04-24 10:43 pm (UTC)Songs are always win in my book, but THAT song is extra perfection for her! And whoo, all aboard the Good kelly Rose ship, maties!
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Date: 2013-04-25 07:05 am (UTC)There might be an antibiotic for that....
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Date: 2013-04-24 09:25 pm (UTC)(Re: the book OMG A FIGHT HOLY CRAP! They're not just sexing him into submission!? What is this insanity!?)
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Date: 2013-04-24 10:44 pm (UTC)AND YEAH, I'M SO SHOCKED/THRILLED!
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Date: 2013-04-25 03:02 am (UTC)I’ll just pretend that he was saying all of that just to butter her up, just like I’ll pretend that Joseph and his family secretly fled the country and are now living under the protection of a group of hunters who are planning to assassinate Anita.
/Anita doesn't seem to get that affection and gestures thereof are not like currency. You don't owe them. Ever. To anyone. You just choose to give them or not based on if you want to or not, if you feel to or not. An affectionate gesture given because you feel like it's owed is not affectionate at all./
Does this not sound like something that a sociopath or somebody with extreme autism or another disorder would think? “Wait…they hug because…they want to? Because they…like each other? Huh.”
/She also tries to convince us that she finds Haven less hot now, but the fact she's bringing it up at all makes me less convinced than I might have been if she'd just acted./
Yeah…I find myself believing a heroine’s claims of disliking the male lead less and less when she constantly describes how good-looking he is. Then it starts to look like a case of “the lady doth protest too much.”
/I'm not fond of the term pussy-whipped, namely because there's no equivalent to a male dominating a woman in a relationship because that's how it's 'supposed' to be and thus only a woman being the boss needs a word for it, and because it's meant as a comedic insult (and thus helps erase that men can indeed be abused by female partners, and degrade those who are/
That’s the reason why I’m also iffy with the term “emasculated,” because what equivalent term is there for women that is equally as derogatory and belittling? The words ‘doormat,’ ‘sap,’ and ‘wimp’ are gender-neutral and the word ‘defeminized’ isn’t commonly used. And yes, the lack of an equivalent term for women does suggest that a man constantly haranguing his wife and ordering her around is either fine or is abuse, but a woman nagging her husband is laughable and emasculating.
/LKH, you wanted to make me hate this guy, but I'm agreeing with everything he says./
If Haven didn’t die, I’m sure that he could have shared notes with Monica, another truth-teller whom LKH wants the reader to dislike.
/This kind of reminds me of in Circus of the Damned, when we see Melanie in her lamia form, the first thing that Anita describes is not her snake half but how her bare breasts look and the color of her nipples./
You know, when Haven came out naked with a gun and Noel was cowering behind Anita, it occurred to me that this situation is pretty much a gender reversal of a typical trope. The evil femme fatale, who is conveniently in a state of undress, comes out and threatens the hero’s girlfriend because she’s jealous and doesn’t want to share the hero with anyone else. The hero’s ‘good’ girlfriend naturally cowers behind him, forcing him to protect her. The femme fatale is naked but holds a gun, and thus fulfills two common fan fetishes.
But then LKH wrote stuff like this. And I was reminded once again that LKH is basically the female Frank Miller.
/BUT JUST SO WE NEVER FORGET, NO ONE EVER HAS CURVES LIKE ANITA AND THUS MUST ALWAYS BE COMPARED TO HER!/
Anita…get over yourself. I can’t believe that this woman sneers at Richard for hating himself when she’s so obviously insecure.
/Anita, you never had to be the only girl. You are neck-deep in preternaturals, which include lots of female ones who are just as damn powerful as the men, you just refuse to have anything to do with them or let them near your harem./
Yeah, Anita doesn’t mean a single word that she says. She doesn’t care about being the Exceptional Woman – heck, she LOVES being the Exceptional Woman, since that means that she doesn’t have to share any of her men (what were you saying about Haven being jealous, Anita?). All she does is snipe at other women, so it’s rich for her to pretend that she likes having female allies now.
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Date: 2013-04-25 06:18 am (UTC)If it's allowed to rewrite the meaning of a word... Howzabout trying to popularize the word "eviscerate" as a gender-neutral version of "emasculate"? "Eviscerate" means ripping out the intestines, and the physical sense of "emasculate" is to forcibly remove the testicles, so by analogy with "has a lot of guts"/"has a lot of balls"...
/You know, when Haven came out naked with a gun and Noel was cowering behind Anita, it occurred to me that this situation is pretty much a gender reversal of a typical trope/
It is. Unfortunately, it's written by the same kind of person who writes the gender-standard version oft he trope.
/Anita…get over yourself. I can’t believe that this woman sneers at Richard for hating himself when she’s so obviously insecure. /
Aaaah, but Anita doesn't hate herself! She just needs constant worship to remind her that she should be worshiping herself, and that all those other troublesome people are the peons beneath her feet.
/She doesn’t care about being the Exceptional Woman – heck, she LOVES being the Exceptional Woman, since that means that she doesn’t have to share any of her men (what were you saying about Haven being jealous, Anita?). All she does is snipe at other women, so it’s rich for her to pretend that she likes having female allies now. /
That reminds me. It's impolite to wonder this, buuuut... I wonder if Chica and Pili just so happen to fit the description of "Rosamond" and "Kelly" (in some order).
Put it this way. The only other women Anita tolerates in this book are Dr. Lilian (exists to act as Generic Doctor, vanishes when unneeded), Claudia (exists to act as Generic Muscle, hypothesized ex-Darla-avatar), and Jade (exists to act as Generic China Doll/Lesbian, only present in introductory scene). Since Rosamond and Kelly are not Generic [X] and they serve no purpose in the fight that Claudia doesn't already fill, why did LKH include them? People have observed that she only introduces new characters when she's either avataring someone in (greetings, Aragorn and Legolas - er, Wicked and Truth!) or filling a stereotypical role for the story (hello, Angsty New Penis #15!).
If I'm overreaching, I apologize. But it does seem funny that Hamilton hauled two women who ~stand by Anita's side~ into the story after she got two new female friends IRL.
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Date: 2013-04-25 03:56 pm (UTC)Wouldn't surprise me; anyone who knew Anita for two minutes would know this was the fastest way to brownie points with her.
hat’s the reason why I’m also iffy with the term “emasculated,” because what equivalent term is there for women that is equally as derogatory and belittling?
Ditto. I admit I did make reference to Anita taking Haven's balls, though I did also mention his spine, brain, and guts...and it was more like 'she wants his genitals in a lockbox so only she can have them' than the usual usage.
That's a really interesting point about Haven in the role of the dual-fetish femme fatale. Too bad it wasn't deliberate and couldn't be played with a bit more.
Anita…get over yourself. I can’t believe that this woman sneers at Richard for hating himself when she’s so obviously insecure.
RIGHT?
All she does is snipe at other women, so it’s rich for her to pretend that she likes having female allies now.
Especially since I don't think they appear again after this book thus far.
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Date: 2013-04-25 03:46 pm (UTC)Anita is digging through the pile of sleeping/unconscious bodies looking for her weapons, but so far she's only found ones that aren't hers. <-- Other people are allowed to have weapons? What IS this madness?
Uh, HE TRIED TO RAPE YOU? <-- That read more like the first semi-rational conversation in the book, despite the focus being on Anita's hotness, sexing Anita, and Haven's "awful" unwillingness to share despite the huge number of far more interesting potential conversational topics. I mean, Anita's never wrong (blergh!) but it just didn't read like Anita was worried, much less in danger. It wasn't half as fraught as the Micah-shower-scene.
AFTER he walks in, has nearly killed two werelions, and tries to rape Anita, suddenly she's NOT sure that he should be killed and instead has no idea what to do about him? <-- All of this made her like him more. That's the sort of stuff that Anita can really EMPATHIZE with. The gushy stuff, like worrying about her and trying to help her, is completely incomprehensible to her. Or maybe it was the flattery.
JC is making phone calls to other MotCs to find out if they're alive, and through doing this he finds out how early in the day they wake. <-- What, were clocks outlawed in the AB-verse? Or is time standing still there? Is that my boredom speaking?
"Just by leaving messages this early in the day, Jean-Claude was letting them know that he had woken first. <-- I love watching JC enjoy his power. I wonder if it makes up for having to deal with Anita continuously, though?
any power you raise pretty much has to either be used immediately or displaced into others. They clearly can't just save it for later use <-- this would be an interesting plot point/world building feature. Unfortunately, I think it was more accidental than intentional on the author's part.
[Noel] also looks younger without [his glasses]. Squick. <-- Well, she SAID that his lion's mane was thin and patchy. Among real lions, that's a sign of adolescence. Adults have thick, full manes. And, in some species, the darker the mane the more dominant and virile the lion. So, if you see a pair of male lions working together, the one with the darker mane is usually the one in charge... assume it's that type of lion, of course. This isn't the first time that Anita has alluded to Noel's extreme (jailbait-y) youth.
Have we ever encountered any kind of healing differential before in these books, like alphas healing faster? I think that the alphas recovered from the full moon faster and from rapid shifts between human and animal shapes faster. But I don't think there was much difference in terms of basic healing rate. Otherwise, why have all that naked 'raising healing energy' for 'alpha' Anita in NiC? Also, another wear were-animal, Cherry, lost her entire leg and grew it back as a shapeshifter. (Gabriel infected her to help her get that leg back. He either felt badly for Cherry or knew that his minions needed some form of health care. Even though he was an awful character, Gabriel was not entirely without value. That was also probably accidental.) So weak shouldn't equate to super slow, almost human healing rates.
Owe him? Just as in Flirt, Anita doesn't seem to get that affection and gestures thereof are not like currency. <-- She's never gotten this concept. Anita is always going on about affection owed TO her by.... everyone, really. Weirdly, JC seems to have always understood that affection is a matter of personal discretion.
Anita thinks about how he's handsome and well-endowed but then says that this "didn't make up for the faults of his character." <-- Listen, I've just been TOLD there are faults in his character. (Although murdering an entire family, raping were-lionesses, and potentially killing their children doesn't speak well for him. However, none of that seems to tally into Anita's list of Haven's faults.) If I weigh Haven's faults according to Anita against the faults that I know Anita has, Anita still majorly tips the scale. People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.
she can't let him hurt Travis and Noel. <-- Well, she COULD but she WON'T. There's an important difference.
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Date: 2013-04-25 03:51 pm (UTC)- All of this made her like him more. That's the sort of stuff that Anita can really EMPATHIZE with. The gushy stuff, like worrying about her and trying to help her, is completely incomprehensible to her.
So horrifyingly true.
Unfortunately, I think it was more accidental than intentional on the author's part.
As is a lot of neat things, it seems
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Date: 2013-04-25 03:55 pm (UTC)(BUT WHAT DO THE POLICE ATTRIBUTE THE MURDERED CHILDREN TOO? WHAT TEACHER WOULDN'T NOTICE THAT JOHNNY HASN'T BEEN TO SCHOOL TODAY MUCH LESS IN THREE DAYS OR EVER AGAIN? Hell, teachers even keep an eye on WHERE a withdrawn kid's records go, especially if that kid is suspected of having a shifty home life. People notice missing children! AND WHAT SEMI-HUMAN MOTHER WOULD BE OKAY WITH IT?)
Not that murdering children or full on raping OTHER women is considered a character flaw of Haven's by Anita. It's only bad when he refuses to kotow to Anita, menaces her, and is generally unreasonable that he gets labeled "almost a rapist."
*ahem*
All of that aside, though, Anita is Regina because Haven MADE her Regina. (The Exceptional, non-raped woman over those weak, normal, raped ones. *gags*)
Theoretically, he could just take the position away from Anita again. She's too much trouble to be worth keeping, regardless of the infrequent sex that she allows him. (The luxury of denying him is presumably Anita's alone.)
and thus helps erase that men can indeed be abused by female partners, and degrade those who are---"oh, he's just pussy-whipped!" <-- THIS!
I dropped Buffy for good over this. Because, regardless of the state of his soul and his later discovered ability to hit her, Spike was helpless before Buffy. He couldn't hit her back because at first he physically couldn't and later when he could he was in love with her and that's not who he was with his romantic partners. He couldn't win an argument with her because they always ended with her breaking his nose. And the other Scoobies thought it was par for the course or something that they should get in on. If the genders were reversed and Biff was regularly kicking the shit out of Splendora, ended arguments by breaking her nose, and forcefully undressing and fucking her when she said things like, "No, stop." and "I don't feel like it." I guarantee you that most of S6's episodes wouldn't've made it past the censors. (Or, hell, Xander's many gleeful comments about 'playing' "Kick the Splendora".)
But, since it's a GIRL domestically abusing a GUY, it's okay. And, since he's a GUY, of course he wants to have sex with the pretty girl.
The rules should cut both ways.
And the fact he's only an *attempted* rapist means he's still a better person than Anita is. <-- He's only an ATTEMPTED rapist because he ATTEMPTED to rape ANITA. Random side details mentioned on Lashouts imply that he's raped the other lionesses and (potentially) killed their children.
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Date: 2013-04-25 04:15 pm (UTC)Oh my god, all the icksome feelings from this. Come to think of it I did read about this on TvTropes, but I just blocked it out because it so sincerely disturbing to me.
And why are there children in the Prides anyway? It's a plot point in this book that therians besides the tigers* can't have babies because their monthly shifting causes miscarriages. Are these children human, then? The children of werelion fathers with human mothers, or kids that the lionesses either adopted or had before becoming therians? If so, are non-lion family members of lions counted as in the Pride and thus subject to things like this? Because someone would sure as hell call the cops on that mess.
*Well, and the swans and dogs, but both of those are free from the moon's pull so it's obvious how they do it and not something they can share with other groups
There's no rule of the universe that states that Anita MUST be in charge of the lions.
Incorrect; it's one of the basic laws of this universe that Anita RULES ALL THE THINGS
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Date: 2013-04-25 04:16 pm (UTC)So the lioness' hips weren't "the slender of starvation diets" but instead from working out <-- How EXACTLY do you work your BONE STRUCTURE into being more slender? Is Anita judging those women with strong, childbearing hips for letting their bones go and getting fat the same way she's judging those skinny, starving women for starving their hip bones into shards? ....Even just writing that makes me feel ridiculous.
And I think it probably DOES hit him to do so despite what he claims. I'm not saying that because he's a man, obviously all men aren't like that, but he is a werelion, and we were shown in Flirt that male werelions, even if that may not be their real personality, can be made like that by a lioness in heat. <-- Putting aside the fact that this all sounds like MEN CAN'T CONTROL THEIR URGES, he might be angry at the Lion Lady because he deliberately chose to join Joseph's pride. Noel and Travis may have the same "male" urges but they have obviously bought into Joseph's way of being a lion. Anita says that Joseph deliberately picked weak males to make a weak pride but it seems more like Joseph picked people of conviction who believed in self-determination, self-control, and being decent to the people around you. Anita once again mistakes being a decent person with being weak.
instead of introducing herself back, Anita says "You already know my name." <-- It would be HILARIOUS if someone said, "No, I really don't. Who the hell are you?"
According to Kelly, Payne told her that Haven only intended to beat up Noel, but beat Travis too when he stepped in to stop it.
a.) Who the hell is Payne?
b.) When did Lion Lady have TIME to gossip between her sudden arrive (And what the hell happened to the travel time between Chicago and St. Louis?), the orgy, and waking up from the orgy? Since she was waking up, I assume that she was part of it.
c.) Why isn't Lion Lady holding a grudge about BEING RAPED by Anita & Co?
d.) If she's a lion and in St. Louis, doesn't she HAVE to be part of Haven's pride? I always had the impression that were-animals didn't have a choice. It always seemed 'join our gang or die' to me.
e.) Her fighting Haven makes no sense. She should be fighting to get free of Anita and JC. She should be on Team Haven as a matter of self-interest. When Anita dies, there won't be anyone holding her to St. Louis. She can go home.
Claudia... lives [at the Circus] part of the time according to Anita. <-- EVERYONE lives at the circus when it's convenient for Anita. Also, it's interesting that the were-rats are all uniformly in favor of clothes, too. It makes me like them EVEN MORE.
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Date: 2013-04-25 05:41 pm (UTC)Yes. Anita mostly can't stand skinny women, but once a woman is past what she thinks is approvably curvy (aka her body type) she takes potshots shamelessly at them for being fat (Crystal in GP, Manny's wife in ST)
Anita once again mistakes being a decent person with being weak.
An excellent point!
A) One of the werelion bodyguards that Haven brought with him
B) I guess on the way to the Circus
C) Psssh, it's not rape if it's the ardeur!
D) Yeah, I would think so
E) She was just brought it to Haven's Pride recently, she may not have any idea that Anita and JC are actually worse than he is.
FUCK YEAH WERERATS FOR CLOTHES! Come to that, it's not only just the people that are super sexual anyway that are always nude (Zane, Cherry, Nathaniel, etc) not to mention young and attractive (we never see a naked Dr. Lillian or Irving or Louis) but it's also just the species that LKH seems to favor. I don't think a naked werehyena has ever appeared, and the last time I recall a nude wererat prior to this orgy was in GP where that one was threatening to rape Anita, and that was, like the orgy, a very obviously sexualized situation, not "oh they just like to be nude and cuddle with me, but it's NOT sexual, reeeally~!"
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Date: 2013-04-25 04:17 pm (UTC)The only feelings that the Good Female is allowed to have towards Anita's men are hostile ones so that she is guaranteed not to try to steal them. <-- Didn't Claudia sex Micah up during the orgy? And Anita mistook her for a man. (Also, the idea of pretty, little Micah and big, handsome Claudia getting together REALLY amuses me. It also appeals to me despite my meh feelings towards Claudia and my active dislike towards Micah.)
"Rosamond went down in the first few blows. She lay on the ground bleeding and dazed" <-- Haven charged ANITA, not Rosamond. How'd she get hit?
The fight scene has some basic girl vs boy gender presumptions. Anita and Haven get to be good with their feet AND hands/arms. Claudia, however, has to be a freakin' kickboxer despite her ginormous biceps because apparently all of her strength lies in her legs. Or she doesn't know how to hit or something. And when Kelly dares to break the arm-related gender taboo, hers gets broken.
Was he always a sexist, or is he just randomly one now that LKH wants him killed? <-- I don't know.
Also, god forbid that Claudia ever have had a conversation about this with Anita before, as if her opinion as a 'friend' counted or anything, how ridiculous! No, she just had to wait in obscurity until LKH got mad at somebody and decided to throw her at his avatar. <--This shows a real lack of depth to the character relationships. I've ALWAYS told my girlfriends when I didn't like their new boy... or thought he was gay and using her as a beard.
She just stands there while Kelly gets taken out and Claudia takes on Haven solo. <-- It's like a Japanese anime fight scene where everyone politely pairs off to fight or waits to take their turn. And no one cheats or double-teams someone or overwhelms them, 5-to-1. It's just ridiculous.
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Date: 2013-04-25 05:44 pm (UTC)Oh, I believe they are. I'm especially into Claudia despite her 2D character simply because I love Amazons. But as you said, this narrator is not impartial and it very much shows in-universe.
Didn't Claudia sex Micah up during the orgy?
She seems to have done so, yes, or at least somehow wound up lying against him afterward. Which could be why she doesn't appear after this book....
Also, the idea of pretty, little Micah and big, handsome Claudia getting together REALLY amuses me. It also appeals to me despite my meh feelings towards Claudia and my active dislike towards Micah.
LOL ME TOO <3 IT'S FUNNY AND HOT AT THE SAME TIME
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Date: 2013-04-25 08:26 pm (UTC)Now onto things that are terrible in whole different ways.
Also, he's nude and "it bothered me a little because I'd put Noel in the protect category; no, let's be honest, I thought of him as too innocent for me."
BUT I THOUGHT THAT NUDITY WASN'T SEXUAL, ANNNNNNITA. Since it seems that nude (ugh) 'puppy-cuddles' are instinctive of sifters AND Anita is given the qualities and compulsions of shifters, then she shouldn't even remark on his nudity unless she was actively looking at him in a sexual way, such as with Haven.
You know, if a good novel (or hell, let's lower the bar super low and just say a 'better' novel), with all the obvious buildup to how girly-girl Rosamund is, she would have KICKED SOME ASS in that fight. Although, the fact that she has no fighting experience, limited strength, and seemingly no particular inclination towards fighting, it was spectacular that she did throw herself into the melee against one of the most powerful people she knows to fight for what she believed in.
It kills me that Anita's Queen of All but does nothing but throw her weight around. Not that I believe that rulers wouldn't just take all the power and leave all their subjects in the dust. Rather, I have a feeling that if anyone tried to rule in her steed (while still respecting her authority, even), she'd lose her shit.
"These are MY (first wrote 'people, but she doesn't see shifters as people, silly me!) animals, how DARE she take MY power and work towards giving them proper healthcare. I'm going to send someone to rape her to death because that's JUST HOW ANIMALS ACT WHEN OTHER ANIMALS FORM UNIONS"
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Date: 2013-04-25 08:54 pm (UTC)Aw, thank you. I wasn't too hopeful for him, he couldn't have been more than five days, probably less, and likely had internal damage from the puncture wounds. But at least he died bundled up and warm and probably asleep, versus in the jaws of my cat.
then she shouldn't even remark on his nudity unless she was actively looking at him in a sexual way,
Right? Anita may say his nudity isn't sexual, but it's very obvious LKH always does, given how she always writes about it.
she would have KICKED SOME ASS in that fight.
Right? Sadly the 'girly girls can't fight' is a trope not limited to AB novels.
Although, the fact that she has no fighting experience, limited strength, and seemingly no particular inclination towards fighting, it was spectacular that she did throw herself into the melee against one of the most powerful people she knows to fight for what she believed in.
I agree! Go Rosamond!
because that's JUST HOW ANIMALS ACT WHEN OTHER ANIMALS FORM UNIONS"
I think it would baffle LKH to know that male rats are very gentle and considerate when courting their chosen bride, and that with horses it's the FEMALE'S perogative to decide when and with whom she wishes to mate. If she is not in heat, she won't let the stallion near her, and will attack any stallion foolish enough to try mounting her. Of course, as with "girly girls can't fight", the idea that animals aren't rape machines, even when things like heat are involved, is a foreign concept to many authors, I've noticed.
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Date: 2013-05-08 08:09 am (UTC)I'm not sure it's quite that simple, because we also give affection to people when they seem to need it, even if we do not particularly feel like it at the moment. To take an entirely non-physical example, if someone you care about seems to need a sympathetic ear you'll probably hear them out even if you're tired and would most of all not be bothered at the moment.
(mind you, I suppose that I have a peculiar perspective of it, because I spend a lot of time feeling dead inside and trying to do right by people purely by rote, even though all I want is for the entire world to go away)
Having that said - yes, Anita always sounds like there is some complex code of behaviour whereby you have a duty to do exactly so much in precisely that situation, and anyone who does less or asks for more falls in the extremely well-populated category of People Who Aren't Perfect Like Anita. And that seems to be her sole reason for giving anyone the time of day; not empathy, not morals, certainly not genuine care, just that she wants to feel superior to people who don't follow the rules as she sees them (read: as she has made them up wholecloth).
Anita thinks about how he's handsome and well-endowed but then says that this "didn't make up for the faults of his character."
I know that I am not the first, or the tenth, or the ten thousandth to remark on this, but... why are they all well-endowed?
Seriously. Doesn't LKH realise just how much she's abusing statistical probability? Hell knows I don't begrudge the ladies a chance to dream about hot guys with impressive equipment - in fact, in romance novels and the likes (and this is definitely "and the likes") I practically expect it. But in most novels, you get to see perhaps one or two love/lust interests naked, so the fact that they happen to be big, well, it's the kind of coincidence that you can accept in fiction. But when we deal with dozens upon dozens of them, and they are all the same - look, my suspension of disbelief snaps, okay?
And before anyone says anything, yes, I feel the same way about novels where every major female character is described as being notably busty. One or two curvy women are cool, but when they are all built the same way I start to get the uneasy feeling that they're clones or something...
Well, at least her reasons seem to make more sense than Kelly's--she hates how Haven treats others, but knows she can't do anything about it on her own, so the second it looks like the other Pride powerhouse, the Regina, is going to take him on, she'll side with her because she actually does have a chance.
Hell, I like this woman. She seems like a naturally gentle person who's trying to be tough because the situation demands toughness. That's not easy, and that makes me admire her. :) And I guess it helps that I just naturally side with the gentle characters and am resentful that being tough and aggressive is so often portrayed as morally superior.